Comment on UK Government Response to the Stop Killing Games Petition
RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world 6 months agoI don’t think they need to release the source code. They could pay some developers to edit the functions of code that contact the server to work offline, or more preferrably, just release compiled binaries for the server so that consumers can run their own private servers after the game officially hits EoS.
Some companies reuse code from previous games in their new games, in fact I’d say it would be stupid for them not to. Obviously if they released source code then they are making it that much easier for cheaters in their newer games.
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 6 months ago
The effect that open sourcing a game would have on cheaters is basically propaganda as far as I’m concerned. Cheating has not and will not be defeated by making a game closed source or even installing rootkits on players’ machines. However, open sourcing a game isn’t necessary to keep it alive after sunsetting it either.
RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world 6 months ago
The best way to stop cheaters is to program the game to be Server Authoritative with Client-side Prediction. If the server does all the math for checking damage, whether someone hit something, speed and position, etc, then the client cannot cheat those values no matter how hard they try. The server will tell everyone else the correct values and the cheater will keep getting reset to what the server says is true. The only kind of cheats you can use on a game like that would be aimbot or wallhacks. But both of those can often be detected using anti-cheat software which acts like a rootkit. So a combination is most often used.
Like I said, I don’t think open source is necessary. If the server binaries are released, then people can run their own private or join someone else’s by IP, just like online games used to work in the 90’s. That is plenty good enough for consumers to keep using what they paid for and takes zero effort on the part of the developer. Its just the reason they don’t is a combination of what I said before and the publisher wanting you to stop playing the old stuff and only buy the new stuff. Nintendo is notorious for this, and one of the reasons my strong dislike for them has been growing.
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I’d hardly call that defeating cheating, and a rootkit anticheat, while overstepping boundaries in what is acceptable to be done on your own PC, still can’t detect those cheats powered by external hardware, including aimbots. The difference in results between a closed source game with this server authoritative design and an open source one is moot. It’s a bad excuse. It doesn’t mean I’m going to fight too hard for all games to go open source when there are way bigger fish to fry though.